Friday’s (9/9) Washington Business Journal (Washington, D.C.) profiles Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter, named one of the magazine’s “2016 Women Who Mean Business.” “When Deborah Rutter took over the presidency of the Kennedy Center two years ago, she had planned to spend the first months getting to know the institution,” writes Rebecca Cooper. “What wasn’t necessarily on the agenda was managing an overhaul of a major piece of the facility’s expansion…. The Kennedy Center ultimately scrapped [a floating structure on the Potomac River] in favor of a land-based pavilion…. The story is one that highlights Rutter’s approach: listening—perhaps a holdover from her time as a violinist—analysis and an almost pathological need to get things done…. She considers her greatest success … the opening of Benaroya Hall, the new permanent venue for the Seattle Symphony, where she worked for 11 years as executive director…. The new concert hall … subsequently led to revitalization of the parts of downtown Seattle adjacent to it…. At the Kennedy Center, that drive is applied to making the venerable performing arts center more diverse in its programming.” Prior to the Kennedy Center post, Rutter served as president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for over a decade.
Posted September 14, 2016
Deborah Rutter photo by Joanne S. Lawton
